Georgina Kleege teaches creative writing and disability studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her recent books include
Sight Unseen
and
Blind Rage: Letters to Helen Keller
.
What complicates the ways people respond to my height is that I am also blind. I cannot always see the double takes, the astonished gaze sweeping up and down the length of my body – though it is possible to feel these responses, or rather to hear them. A hush tends to come over a room when a blind person enters. My blindness, like my height, makes people see their surroundings differently.